


More Fierce Than Fire

by Mertiya



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Children, Fluff, M/M, Mairon helps out, Melkor is a drama queen, Minor AU, Not quite a kidfic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, again sorta, but it's relatively healthy as angbang goes, but sort of, warning that melkor has somewhat predictably homicidal thoughts i suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23583424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Melkor storms off in a strop because he can't get something to work.  Mairon rolls his eyes and helps.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	More Fierce Than Fire

“ _Nothing works_!” Melkor felt the black weight of anger falling upon him, staring down at the hand-sized dark oval lying quiescent on the ground. Dead. Dormant. Just like all he touched. Perhaps he had never been meant to create at all; perhaps he should have stayed and knelt before Iluvatar’s throne, perhaps—

“Master—”

“ _What_!” He whirled on Mairon, nearly slamming the Maia into the wall behind him. Mairon did not flinch, merely bowing his head in submission. 

“I simply do not think we have exhausted all possible lines of—”

“Be _silent_ and I may not carve your tongue from your head!” Melkor snarled, then immediately knew he had gone too far at the angry flash in his lieutenant’s eyes. And still Mairon did not raise a hand to defend himself.

“As you wish, lord,” he said icily.

Melkor stared once again down at what should have been an egg, at the sad tiny scrap that should have contained life but instead seemed no different from the shards of dark rock around it. It had breathed, the day before. It had breathed, hummed, sung, but now it was silent, and the silence tore into Melkor’s heart. Destruction was simple; creation yet eluded him, slipping through his fingers day after day after day.

“Get out,” he told Mairon, who, to his irritation, did not obey, although he went down on one knee, those bright eyes still flashing with an untamable fire. “What did I _say_?”

“Give me leave to try something. I have an idea.”

A stupid idea, no doubt, like all their others, all their other miserable, failed experiments. Melkor itched with the desire to drag Mairon to his feet, to throw him from the tower and watch his body break on the rocks below. But once broken, not so easily mended. Instead, he growled, whirling on his heel and stalking from the room. Better to let Mairon discover his inevitable failure for himself.

~

He laid alone that night. Mairon did not come to him, perhaps as a consequence of his harsh words the day before. It made Melkor’s bed cold and did not improve his temper. Still, he could hardly complain when he had so forcefully dismissed Mairon the day before. If he had wanted someone who did not challenge him, he would have treated the Maia as Aulë did, holding him back, containing him, keeping his wings clipped and allowing him only those paths that the Valar deemed within his scope. And Melkor had been richly rewarded. Mairon already held twice the power of any of the other Maiar.

Still, when he saw nothing of Mairon in the morning, he became concerned. The servants had seen nothing either, upon his questioning. Finally, Melkor was forced to conclude that either he had departed or he had remained where he was when Melkor had last seen him—in the dungeons beneath Angband. But why would he have—

A strange, chill fear ran down Melkor’s back as he retraced his steps from the day before, which only increased as he saw the red glow of flame licking beneath the heavy iron door of the room where he had left Mairon. He opened it and half stepped back in shock. The room had vanished, replaced with a pool of magma that hissed and spat. In the center of lay Mairon, naked, his body shining, his eyes closed, his fëa barely clinging to his form.

“Mairon!” Melkor strode forward, the lava parting as he moved, but he stopped when the Maia threw up a hand, eyes snapping open. And then Melkor saw the small black object on his chest, the flames of his impromptu forge licking up around it.

The egg rocked on Mairon’s chest. It breathed. As Melkor caught his own breath, a thin red crack appeared in the top of the shell.

“I think you woke him,” Mairon said with a smile so breathtakingly open Melkor found himself even more surprised, even more set back.

“What have you done?” he asked quietly.

The glee in Mairon’s eyes was almost child-like, as he got slowly to his feet and waded towards his master, holding out the little egg in both hands. “He needed warmth, that was all,” he said. _Krik-krack_ went the egg. The creature inside twitched; the top of it fell without a sound, and a tiny tail lashed. “You see, lord? You see what you have created?”

Melkor watched, his own breath ragged, as the tiny thing shook, as the remaining shell cracked and fell apart. Tiny wings spread, and the creature launched itself with a hiss from Mairon’s cupped hands. A few wobbling wingbeats more and Melkor hastily put out his own hands to catch it as it fell. It hissed again, and bit him hard on the thumb.

“Oh! I’m sorry, my lord!” Mairon hurried to his side, but Melkor was laughing at the ferocity of the little thing, barely two handspans large even with its wings full outstretched. It spat a spark at him, then as he made no other move, clearly decided he was not a threat, stretched, kneaded his palm with tiny paws, curled up, and went to sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Melkor said quietly; Mairon looked at him, uncomprehending for a moment and then looked away.

“You’re welcome, my lord,” he said pointedly, then ruined it by turning back to bend over and practically coo at the just-hatched thing. “What shall we call him? Your creation, Melkor, your—”

“Not only mine,” Melkor said softly. “It was _your_ fire that saved him, Mairon.” It was strange, to feel that he had _shared_ a creation in some sense. Very strange, but somehow he felt that he did not mind. He put one proprietary arm on Mairon’s shoulder and drew him close, then kissed the top of his head. “What would _you_ call him, Little Flame?”

“Hmmm.” Mairon wrinkled his nose, then smiled. “Well, his first action was to attack you with— _oh_!” He had tried to stroke the creature’s little head and now it was his finger trapped in those little jaws. The baby dragon worried at his fingertip for an instant, then huffed and went back to sleep. Mairon laughed. “ _Angcalagon,_ ” he said. “ _Rushing jaws_.”

“Perfect,” Melkor agreed. “Perhaps, if he’s fortunate, he’ll grow into it.”


End file.
